Did You Know...

Several Chicago readers and Twitterers report that ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson told WLS-AM Chicago talk show hosts Don Wade and Roma this morning that the reason he hasn’t covered the ACORN scandal is that he didn’t know about it.

Reader Patrick M. e-mails:

While listening to Don Wade and Roma this morning on WLS AM Chicago, they had Charlie Gibson on as their usual Tuesday morning guest. Don asked Charlie, why, after the senate last night voted to halt funding to ACORN and after three of those video tapes of ACORN employees helping the pimp and prostitute set up shop, there was no mention of it anywhere on the network news. Charlie gave out a most uncomfortable laugh and said that that was the first he heard of it!

Don and Roma pointed out that ABC’s Jake Tapper reported on the Census Bureau’s decision to drop ACORN from its data collection partnerships on Friday as a result of BigGovernment.com’s video stings.

Bernie Goldberg’s looking for new names for the “mainstream media.” I’m pitching ostrich media. How about you?

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Update: Courtesy of Don and Roma and WLS, here is the audio clip of Gibson. His laugh is really something. Reminded me of Barney Rubble. My favorite comment from Gibson? When he snarks that “Maybe that’s just one you leave to the cables.”

Here’s a transcript:

Don: Okay, here’s my news question. A Senate bill yesterday passes, cutting off funds to this group called ACORN. Now, we got that bill passed and we have the embarrassing video of ACORN staffers giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel with 13-year-old hookers. It has everything you could want – corruption and sleazy action at tax-funded organizations and it’s got government ties. But nobody’s covering that story. Why?

Gibson: HAHAHAHAHA. HEHEHE. I didn’t even know about it. Um. So, you’ve got me at a loss. I don’t know. Uh. Uh. But my goodness, if it’s got everything including sleaziness in it, we should talk about it this morning.

Roma: This is the American way!

Gibson: Or maybe this is just one you leave to the cables.

Roma: Well, I think this is a huge issue because there’s so much funding that goes into this organization…

Gibson: I know we’ve done some stories about ACORN before, but this one I don’t know about…

Roma: Jake Tapper did some blogging on it. I know he’s blogged at least once on this scandal.